Super-Rich Read, Go Online More; Watch TV, Listen to Radio Less

Affluent “heads-of-house” read more publications and use the internet more heavily than the balance of the population, and consumption of these media increases with affluence, according to the 2008 Affluent Survey from Ipsos Mendelsohn, writes MarketingCharts.

Affluent Americans with annual household incomes of $100K or more read an average of eight publication titles, while the average number of issues they read is 17.9. Among the super-rich (those with incomes more than $250K), however, the number of issues read jumps to 25.5.

Similarly, the average number of hours all affluent heads-of-house spend weekly on the internet is 23.4, while the super rich spend 27.4 hours a week surfing.

Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, National Geographic, Cooking Light, Time and Sports Illustrated are among the publications that have the highest per-issue audiences among the affluent.

Consumption of television and radio, unlike publications and the internet, falls as income increases:

The average number of weekly hours spent TV-watching among all affluent heads-of-house is 19.5, while the super-rich spend 17.8 hours in front of the TV.

Radio fares similarly. The average weekly time spent listening to the radio among all affluent heads-of-house is 11.3 hours, while it is 10.9 hours among those in the highest income categories.